Dr. Naa Oyo A. Kwate received her B.A. in Psychology from Carleton College and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from St. John’s University. She completed post-doctoral training in cancer prevention and control at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. She is currently Associate Professor in the Departments of Human Ecology and Africana Studies at Rutgers University. Kwate is a recipient of a National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award (2009) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Investigator Award in Health Policy (2008). She has received research funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Eating Research Program and New Connections and the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program. Her research centers on determinants of African-American health, with particular attention to individual level experiences of identity and inequality, and the intersection of these variables with more distal structural factors. She has conducted research on racial identity, the effects of racism on health, and neighborhood context and food environments in African-American communities.